Strategy Decisions

Post-RESF Consolidated Deliverable Reset

Mar 13, 2026 · strategy · high94% confidence

Decided to deliver a single consolidated update to Lindsay on revised March deliverables after RESF work stabilizes, rather than incremental delay announcements. Nathan will reset all project dates at once.

People: Nathan Blackham, Max Spevack, Lindsay Aamodt

Brian Clemens — Loop In After Front Door Closes

Mar 11, 2026 · strategy · high72% confidence

Decided Brian Clemens should be brought into RESF matters only after the front door is closed, acknowledging he'll be critical for reconstruction but the current phase requires operational security. Conditional on his behavior: 'If he hasn't gone off the reservation at that point.'

People: Brian Clemens, Greg Kurtzer, Bjorn Hovland

Endorsed Bjorn's Linux Prioritization Framework

Mar 11, 2026 · strategy · medium63% confidence

Endorsed Bjorn's four-principle framework for prioritizing Linux work (Parity, Value, Access/ubiquity, Integration) and directed him to provide concrete examples demonstrating the framework in action.

People: Bjorn Hovland

RLC AI — Ship Iteratively Despite Unclear Vision

Mar 10, 2026 · strategy · medium72% confidence

Directed that RLC AI should ship something iteratable now rather than waiting for a clear long-term vision. Product direction should be discovered through market interaction, not predetermined.

People: Max Spevack

RESF Operational Security — Compartmentalize Until Board Action

Mar 10, 2026 · strategy · critical94% confidence

Directed that Brian must not be told anything until after the RESF board notification. Emphasized extreme caution about leaks to Lewis. Approved Joseph being read into the initiative but warned about leak risk. Sequenced information flow: board action first, then notifications, then credential recovery.

People: Nathan Blackham, TJ Gohl, Steve Wallace, Max Spevack, Jonathan Dieter, Justin Haynes

Prioritize GPU Optimization to Define Team Capability Needs

Mar 8, 2026 · strategy · high78% confidence

Directed that GPU utilization optimization be prioritized for Fuzzball/RLC AI, using the priority as a diagnostic to reveal what in-house capabilities the team needs.

People: Greg Kurtzer, Bjorn Hovland

Prioritize Google Exec Meeting — Adjust Reno Travel

Mar 6, 2026 · strategy · medium78% confidence

Agreed to meet a confidential new Google executive (distinguished engineer from Google Cloud, came through Tissa) for Monday dinner or Thursday lunch. Thursday option requires returning from Reno Wednesday night. Directed Greg to cover Toyota in person on Wednesday if needed.

People: Kelly Hall, Bjorn Hovland, Sarah Almaraz, Greg Kurtzer

RESF Option A — CIQ-Led Transition with Narrative Reframing

Mar 5, 2026 · strategy · critical81% confidence

Adopted Option A (CIQ-led transition) as the only viable path for RESF. Reframed narrative for Greg as 'skeleton' foundation for future vibrant community, not 'threadbare' end state. End-state vision: Rocky Linux displaces Alma and Ubuntu as de facto enterprise OS. Identified critical leadership gap requiring new empowered leader ('mystic unicorn') deputized by remaining board. Internal story: 1-year transition to 501(c)(6).

People: Max Spevack, Bjorn Hovland, Greg Kurtzer

Unified Google Proposal — Present Combined GDC/GCE to Rohan

Mar 4, 2026 · strategy · high92% confidence

Aligned Kelly and Bjorn on presenting a unified GDC/GCE proposal to Rohan (Google senior director) instead of negotiating separately. Reframing from pro-serve/ticket model to value-driven partnership with a large fixed annual fee ($8-9M).

People: Kelly Hall, Bjorn Hovland, Katie O'Malley, Rohan (Google), Tissa (Google)

Aligned with Max on RESF Option A (Skeleton Independent) as the best path

Mar 3, 2026 · strategy · high82% confidence

After reading Max's RESF decision framework document ('The Future of the RESF: A Decision Framework for CIQ'), Peter agreed with Max that Option A — maintaining the RESF as an independent entity in the lightest possible form with one CIQ-employed full-time RESF leader — is the best path. This is Peter's position alignment with Max, not yet a company decision. Next step is presenting to Bjorn and Greg for buy-in.

People: Max Spevack, Bjorn Hovland, Greg Kurtzer

Aligned with Max on RESF Option A (Skeleton Independent) as the best path

Mar 3, 2026 · strategy · high82% confidence

After reading Max's RESF decision framework document ('The Future of the RESF: A Decision Framework for CIQ'), Peter agreed with Max that Option A — maintaining the RESF as an independent entity in the lightest possible form with one CIQ-employed full-time RESF leader — is the best path. This is Peter's position alignment with Max, not yet a company decision. Next step is presenting to Bjorn and Greg for buy-in.

People: Max Spevack, Bjorn Hovland, Greg Kurtzer

Decided to carefully surface Icicle results to Bjorn

Feb 27, 2026 · strategy · medium69% confidence

After validating Icicle test methodology with Ryan (BIOS change applied before both with/without comparisons — apples-to-apples), and learning Ani was told by Bjorn to stand down on Icicle, Peter decided to personally and carefully bring the validated results to Bjorn's attention.

People: Bjorn Hovland, Ryan Smith, Ani Fox Bochenkov, Greg Kurtzer

Expanded NVIDIA licensing ask to include Fabric Manager + NVISM

Feb 27, 2026 · strategy · medium85% confidence

Expanded the NVIDIA licensing negotiation scope beyond DOCA-OFED to include Fabric Manager, NVISM, and other critical InfiniBand components not currently in the CUDA bundle. Sent email to Scott Hara while Bjorn was drafting the DOCA-OFED amendment language.

People: Peter Nelson, Scott Hara, Bjorn Hovland

Committed to aggressive NVIDIA GPU Operator self-certification timeline for GTC

Feb 27, 2026 · strategy · high95% confidence

Led GPU Operator Self Certification meeting with NVIDIA. Committed CIQ to building pre-compiled GPU driver containers for Rocky Linux (mirroring Ubuntu model) and pursuing self-certification targeting preliminary completion by end of next week to support a GTC announcement.

People: Peter Nelson, Bjorn Hovland, Scott Hara, Edrick Wong, Francis Guillier, Christophe Harle, Nathan Blackham

Rocky project contingency war room - infrastructure security planning

Feb 26, 2026 · strategy · critical74% confidence

Committed to scheduling a war room meeting to create a detailed, step-by-step contingency plan for securing Rocky infrastructure (AWS, FreeIPA) against potential hostile action by former members. Plan assumes an outage will be necessary to revoke access. Technical cutover to be planned before legal letters are sent.

People: Nathan Blackham, Justin Haynes, Max Spevack

Risk tolerance recalibration - push and be wrong for low-risk releases

Feb 26, 2026 · strategy · high80% confidence

Established new release philosophy: 'push and be wrong' for low-risk changes, prioritizing speed over perfection. Directed Nathan to ship two approved CVE fixes for unused packages immediately as a precedent-setting test case, bypassing the usual review process.

People: Nathan Blackham, Justin Haynes, Max Spevack

Set NVIDIA positioning: benchmarks are AMD-only, offer to collaborate on tuning

Feb 25, 2026 · strategy · medium74% confidence

Defined strategic positioning for NVIDIA benchmark situation: frame existing benchmarks as AMD-only, and offer to work with NVIDIA to tune Rocky Linux for their platform. This turns a potential embarrassment into a partnership opportunity.

People: Greg Kurtzer, Bjorn Hovland, Scott Hara

Committed to Google contract restructure proposal within 1 week

Feb 25, 2026 · strategy · high59% confidence

Secured commitment from Google's senior management to consider a contract restructure addressing financial unsustainability. Peter committed to delivering a formal proposal for new contract terms within one week.

People: Google senior management, Brady Dibble, Bjorn Hovland

Challenged RLC-AI performance claims before NVidia/Humain use

Feb 24, 2026 · strategy · high72% confidence

Peter personally interrogated the RLC-AI 9-10% performance advantage claim by going directly to Damen Knight (engineer who ran benchmarks) and Max Spevack. Discovered gains largely disappear when benchmarking code is properly optimized (uses torch.compile, etc.). Then asked Damen to evaluate whether Brian's marketing write-up is accurate or misleading: 'makes it sound awesome instead of pointless for data center deployments.'

People: Max Spevack, Damen Knight, Bjorn Hovland, Brian

Pushed for March ARR review, rejected April as too late

Feb 20, 2026 · strategy · medium77% confidence

Directed Sarah and Greg to schedule an ARR targets review meeting in March, pushing back on an April date as too late. Wants to ensure the company is on track for revenue targets and can pivot anything needed. Offered personal availability and said format doesn't matter.

People: Greg Kurtzer, Sarah Almaraz

Directed RESF counter-narrative to Bjorn to prevent premature escalation

Feb 20, 2026 · strategy · high83% confidence

Directed Steve Wallace to email Bjorn (CC Peter) with evidence of positive RESF engagement through Mirror Manager project before Bjorn potentially takes aggressive action. Steve's team has made progress with Neil — environment access granted, Mirror Manager epic unblocked — while other teams report significant friction.

People: Steve Wallace, Bjorn Hovland, Neil (RESF)

Set AI adoption/spending policy: pace over cost, fund passion project tokens

Feb 20, 2026 · strategy · medium78% confidence

Codified org-wide AI tool policy: pace is priority over cost, high token spend signals productivity. CIQ will fund tokens for passion projects (learning) but not work-hour time for non-core work. Work-hour AI projects must align with core responsibilities.

People: Ryan Smith

Engaged external network for AI knowledge exchange through IAG Capital

Feb 17, 2026 · strategy · medium91% confidence

Peter accepted Joel Whitley's (IAG Capital) introduction to Charles Archer (Cornelis Networks CTO) for knowledge exchange about internal AI systems. Also booked a Paydock consultation and offered to demo what he's built to both Joel and Charles.

People: Joel Whitley, Charles Archer, Paydock team

Directed AMD inclusion in Project Odin approach document

Feb 17, 2026 · strategy · medium93% confidence

Peter reviewed Adam Jackson's first draft of the Project Odin approach document and approved it with one specific direction: slides 6/7 should include AMD. Otherwise approved as a great first draft.

People: Adam Jackson, Bjorn Hovland, Chris Baek, Max Spevack

Mandated accelerated cadence with coordination accountability

Feb 12, 2026 · strategy · high91% confidence

In Department Heads meeting, mandated announcements every 2-4 weeks as non-negotiable. Drew accountability line: engineering protected for speed mistakes but NOT for coordination failures (status updates, product priorities, public channel decisions). Framed as make-or-break period driven by $30B revenue goal and Middle East partnership success.

People: Nathan Blackham, Justin Haynes, Bjorn Hovland, Max Spevack, Brady Dibble, Brian Dawson

Mobilized team for Saudi meeting prep and escalated NVIDIA DOCA blocker

Feb 11, 2026 · strategy · high84% confidence

Peter personally intervened to prepare team for critical Saudi Arabia partner meeting on RLC-AI. Posted in #product-rlc-ai asking about CUDA/DOCA availability, discovered NVIDIA written approval for DOCA OFED still pending. Emailed Scott Hara (NVIDIA) directly to advance the approval. Tagged Nathan, Justin, Jeff Uphoff, and Damen Knight demanding they answer Max's detailed technical questions within 24 hours. Set hard deadline: '24 hours from now.' Bjorn committed to calling Scott to reaffirm DOCA modification rights.

People: Max Spevack, Scott Hara, Nathan Blackham, Justin Haynes, Jeff Uphoff, Damen Knight, Brian Dawson, Brady Dibble, Bjorn Hovland

Core42 Technical Assessment - Multi-Product Positioning in UAE

Feb 9, 2026 · strategy · high82% confidence

Attended Core42 meeting in Abu Dhabi with Greg, Bjorn, Max, and Adam Jackson. Provided real-time technical assessment to the team via Slack, identifying product-customer fit across four CIQ product lines: RLC-H for defense customers (CVE remediation pain), Rocky as guest OS on Signature Cloud, Fuzzball as potential replacement for their unhappy AI cloud orchestration partner, and Ascender Pro for their heavy Ansible usage. Followed up personally with Raghu (EVP Engineering, Core42 US) offering in-person meetings.

People: Peter Nelson, Bjorn Hovland, Greg Kurtzer, Max Spevack, Adam Jackson, Ivan Dvoenosov, Raghu Chakravarthi, Awny Alomari

Committed to creating CVE remediation value driver for GTM

Feb 6, 2026 · strategy · medium78% confidence

Committed to creating a value driver for CVE remediation work after learning that remediation volume jumped from 1 to 86 per week. Timeline is ~2 months to develop the story after validating the new process is sustainable.

People: Peter Nelson, Kelly Hall, Brian Christensen

Coached David Godlove on sales-focused approach for AMD Fuzzball presentation

Feb 6, 2026 · strategy · medium92% confidence

During the AMD Fuzzball overview meeting, coached David Godlove via DM to maintain a sales mindset rather than defaulting to engineering transparency about product limitations. Emphasized that the goal was to make AMD want to recommend Fuzzball, not to give a technical peer review.

People: David Godlove, Whitney Wickesberg, David Yonkovit, Matt Bettinger, Chris Wolford, Bjorn Hovland

Approved RLC+ and Pro product hierarchy with new naming and de-risked launch cadence

Feb 6, 2026 · strategy · high88% confidence

Approved a new product hierarchy: Stock Rocky (pure community mirror), RLC+ (free with NVIDIA/AMD drivers), RLC Pro (paid tiers). The RLC name now signifies CIQ value-add. Also approved a de-risked 3-phase launch cadence: Phase 1 (Feb) bundles RLC Pro + RLC Plus NVIDIA; Phase 2 (Feb) RLC Pro AI; Phase 3 (Mar) RLC Plus AMD partnership. Identified backporting vs roll-forward policy gap as a pre-launch blocker.

People: Greg Kurtzer, Bjorn Hovland, Max Spevack, Brady Dibble, Brian Dawson

Google Partnership Strategy - Build Rapport with Tissa

Feb 5, 2026 · strategy · high90% confidence

Decided to shift the Google contract renegotiation strategy from confrontational to collaborative. Peter will personally meet with Tissa (Google) to build rapport and empathy, framing CIQ's financial pain as a shared problem to solve together. Greg will be excluded from this meeting to ensure a non-antagonistic conversation.

People: Kelly Hall, Tissa, Greg Kurtzer

RESF Strategy: Remove Lewis with Legal Leverage, Engage Neil Collaboratively

Feb 4, 2026 · strategy · critical88% confidence

Approved plan to remove Luis (Lewis) from the RESF board using a Quinn Emanuel memo documenting a potential federal law violation and breach of fiduciary duty, then send a collaborative letter to Neil offering a path forward to avoid a public fight. Greg will present the memo to board members to secure their support. Shadow infrastructure (Koji, clones) is confirmed ready.

People: Greg Kurtzer, Bjorn Hovland, Katie O'Malley, Neil, Luis (Lewis), Diane (Quinn Emanuel)

Rocky Security Updates Urgency - Competitive Gap

Feb 3, 2026 · strategy · high82% confidence

Flagged to Max, Justin, and Nathan that Rocky security update tagging is a critical competitive gap needing urgent attention. Shared community post recommending Alma over Rocky because Alma correctly tags security updates and has timelier updates.

People: Max Spevack, Justin Haynes, Nathan Blackham

New Engineering Mandate - 2x Velocity in 6 Months

Feb 3, 2026 · strategy · high88% confidence

Set new mandate for Justin and Nathan: top priority is building a team that can deliver twice as fast in six months. This is a shift from the previous coaching model to a performance-driven one - setting ambitious targets, holding people accountable, and replacing underperformers.

People: Justin Haynes, Nathan Blackham, Greg Kurtzer, Dave Dickerson

Committed to Anduril attendance with Max

Feb 2, 2026 · strategy · medium83% confidence

Committed that Peter and Max will attend Anduril events and meetings that are valuable.

People: Max Spevack, Chris Wolford

Launch RLC Plus/Pro re-architecture under new non-Rocky brand

Feb 2, 2026 · strategy · high88% confidence

Decided to launch the RLC Plus/Pro product re-architecture under a completely new brand name, deliberately decoupling it from the Rocky name to avoid getting caught in the PR fallout from Lewis and Neil departure.

People: Bjorn Hovland

Advocate for in-person Anduril POC kickoff in Seattle

Jan 31, 2026 · strategy · medium80% confidence

Decided to advocate for an in-person technical kickoff meeting in Seattle for the Anduril POC, with both Peter and Max attending. Set clear boundaries on duration - a day or two is fine, but two weeks would break February delivery dates.

People: Max Spevack, Bjorn Hovland, Greg Kurtzer, Ramesh

Position Bjorn as escalation point for Tenable business readiness

Jan 31, 2026 · strategy · medium82% confidence

Decided to position Bjorn as the escalation point for Brady to resolve Tenable business-side roadblocks on the Nessus plugin integration. Technical pipeline (Sam's work) is ~95% unblocked and can deliver data within weeks, but business side may not be ready.

People: Max Spevack, Bjorn Hovland, Brady Dibble

CVE automation is February #1 priority

Jan 31, 2026 · strategy · high88% confidence

Decided that CVE automation is the single most important priority for February. Max should focus on it rather than splitting attention with RLC-AI. RLC-AI has a viable backstop (Peter can threaten to release current version) but CVE automation requires Max's focused leadership.

People: Max Spevack

Time-based releases concept - trains leave on schedule

Jan 30, 2026 · strategy · medium85% confidence

Consider moving to time-based releases where engineering ships whats ready on a fixed cadence (e.g., monthly or bi-weekly). Product must scope features to fit the timeline rather than engineering stretching to fit scope. The train leaves whether youre ready or not.

People: Justin, Peter Nelson, Max Spevack, Nathan Blackham

Quality investment must serve velocity

Jan 30, 2026 · strategy · medium88% confidence

Quality and automation investments are acceptable if the thesis is this will massively increase velocity in 3 months. Quality for its own sake is not the priority. Every quality investment should have a velocity payoff hypothesis attached.

People: Max Spevack, Nathan Blackham, Justin, Peter Nelson

Find the ceiling approach to velocity

Jan 30, 2026 · strategy · medium85% confidence

Rather than incrementally improving 5% at a time safely, push until something breaks, then figure out if the breakage is fixable or a real ceiling. Air cover provided for aggressive experiments. Nobody gets fired for trying to go fast and breaking things.

People: Max Spevack, Nathan Blackham, Justin, Peter Nelson

Aggressive goal-setting philosophy - undercut estimates, force innovation

Jan 30, 2026 · strategy · high88% confidence

Set targets that seem impossible (e.g., 2 months instead of historical 6 months) and let the team figure out how. Success is not just hitting the target - its learning and attempting new approaches. The managers job used to be to pad estimates; now its to undercut them.

People: Max Spevack, Nathan Blackham, Peter Nelson

Focus CVE automation on top 5 priority packages first

Jan 30, 2026 · strategy · high90% confidence

Stack-rank the CVE priority package list and start automation with just the top 5 packages. Drive open CVE count for those 5 as close to zero as possible before expanding scope. Report closed-by-automation separately from will-not-do.

People: Max Spevack, Nathan Blackham, Justin Haynes

LTS roll-forward policy - small stable core, roll everything else

Jan 30, 2026 · strategy · high88% confidence

Define a small core set of packages (~5) that stay stable in LTS releases (kernel, glibc, gcc, and a few others). Everything else can be rolled forward aggressively. Customer-specific additions can be negotiated as needed.

People: Max Spevack, Nathan Blackham, Justin Haynes

Do not pursue RedHat EULA violation for LTS kernel patches

Jan 30, 2026 · strategy · high90% confidence

Decided not to access RedHat EUS SRPMs directly (which would violate their EULA) to obtain CVE patches for LTS kernel work. Instead, continue with NARF-based CVE automation that sources patches from Debian, Ubuntu, Alpine, Arch, upstream commits, and other legitimate sources.

Approved Professional Services strategy pivot

Jan 30, 2026 · strategy · low80% confidence

Approved Ryan proposed PS strategy pivot: align PS with Ramesh product-first vision, discontinue unprofitable standalone training deals and custom engineering work, focus only on product-aligned services (Rocky Linux migrations, dedicated support engineers/TAMs, HPC services) delivered through third-party vendors to scale without increasing headcount.

People: Ryan Smith, Ramesh Srinivasan

Escalated Visa support model concerns to Greg

Jan 30, 2026 · strategy · medium82% confidence

Escalated concerns about CIQ support arrangement with Visa to Greg and Bjorn. Questioning why CIQ is on the hook to support Rocky Linux (which CIQ does not build) for Visa, rather than having Visa use RLC so CIQ can actually fix their issues.

People: Greg Kurtzer, Bjorn Hovland